SUICIDE SQUAD ■ DC’s suicide note
Everything leading up to the release of SUICIDE SQUAD made it look like an action-packed ensemble movie with a fantastic sense of humour. Even before BATMAN V SUPERMAN was widely panned for its dark tone (we still loved it READ REVIEW), SUICIDE SQUAD was pitched to prospective cinemagoers as a different kettle of fish: both tonally, and in terms of the standard approach to superhero movies. Unfortunately, the final product is a slapdash mess that feels more like a disjointed collection of music videos with occasional comic relief than a cohesive sum of its parts..
Because we haven’t yet met any of these villainous characters before, the first act is crammed with flashback backstories for the soon to be squad-mates. Some of these villains get a whole lot more attention than others, like Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), with the rest feeling more like passengers along for the ride than real members of the team. That said, Jai Courtney steals the show as Boomerang: an Aussie actor portraying a Hollywood-level stereotype of an Aussie character who’s big on talk but light on follow-through. He’s the only one who seems to get what the tone of this DIRTY DOZEN-like team-up should be.
In fairness, the tone is all over the place, which isn’t helped by a whole mess of rough scene transitions. The action is a little too close to Paul Greengrass’ idea of visceral cinematography in his BOURNE movies, which makes the many action set pieces fall flat, with the exception of one or two. It’s not even worth delving into the plot, because it’s as threadbare as writer/director David Ayer’s understanding of his cast of bad guys, who talk rough but fall into the trap of all seemingly having hidden hearts of gold. SUICIDE SQUAD does have its moments, with the seemingly unlimited soundtrack budget being the true star of the movie, but it smacks of a wasted opportunity for DC to show a different kind of superhero flick that could stand apart from all-too-easy comparisons to what Marvel has done, infinitely better, time and time again.
